MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

A misguided marijuana raid wastes time and taxpayer dollars and derails the
lives of two innocent parties.

It was almost classic prime-time TV - years of undercover surveillance of a
rural, tree-shrouded, high-end residence for evidence of a drug operation.
Anonymous informers. Wire taps. Diverted garbage bags. Blueprints of the
house perused to spot possible "operation" rooms. Scrutinized utility
bills. Snitch-reported rumors of automatic weapon caches and a planned
drive-by shooting, with the investigative detective as the target.

Even the climax was dramatic: dozens of black-clad, rifle-toting officers
swooping down on the woodsy home and its out-buildings, kicking in doors
and splintering door frames while a pounding helicopter hovered overhead.

But, in fact, this was no fictional episode. The January 1995 raid on a
rural home near Coburg was a joint operation of SWAT (Special Weapons and
Tactics) teams from Lane County, Benton County and the city of Eugene and
INET (Interagency Narcotics Enforcement Team), which includes members of
several area law enforcement agencies.

The real-life outcome also differed significantly from a formulaic
detective episode. On television, the final scene would have showed a
bounty of seized drugs and paraphernalia and sullen, handcuffed drug
traffickers huddled in the back seat of a police car. But in this raid, the
drug stash seized came to less than a half ounce of marijuana and one
bottle of ibuprofen, a non-prescription pain reliever. No arrests were
made. No drug paraphernalia were found. Not a shred of evidence of a
pot-growing operation was uncovered.

And the lives if one innocent couple were irrevocably changed.

Byron Stone, and his wife, Wanda, had for several years worked at the
raided property as caretakers and lived in a mobile home next to their
employer's home. At the time of the raid, Byron Stone, 47, was in the
kitchen, making french fries.

"I was talking to the lady who was coming to take a shift," he told EW in a
recent interview. "Then I looked out the window and saw a big, black van
backing up to the front door. There were guys all dressed in black, their
guns drawn, carrying a big battering ram. And they were headed for the
front door."

In the course of the raid, Stone says, he was ordered to lie on the ground,
his hands behind his back. When he lifted his head to express concern for
how his employer was being handled, he says, one of the officers put a knee
into his back and jerked him upwards. "I felt something [in my back] go.
Then another officer stepped up, locked and loaded his shotgun. I looked up
and was staring into the muzzle of a gun."

During the raid, the Stones' residence was also searched. According to
Wanda Stone, one door was splintered, another taken off its hinges.
"Drawers were emptied everywhere. There was a big hole in our daughter's
bedroom door. Her dresser drawers were pulled out, stuff strewn all over
room." The Stone's nine-year-old daughter was not at home during the raid.

Living through an unexpected police raid is understandably unnerving, but
Stone, who had served a 10-month combat tour in Vietnam, says for him the
incident triggered classic symptoms of post traumatic stress syndrome
(PTSD), a condition he had never suffered from previously.

"It was like going into shell shock 30 years later," Stone says. "I'd have
flashbacks. I had heart palpitations. Every loud noise, I'd just kind of go
to pieces. All I could do is just stand there and shake and quiver."

Stone says the raid came up with nothing because there was nothing to be
found. "It was guilt by association. Her [the property owner's] sister was
growing marijuana on some property in Cottage Grove. They [law enforcement
officials] were so sure they were going to find something [at the Coburg
residence] even though there was no evidence for a raid of that magnitude."
At most, Stone says, his employer smoked personal pot. "If I thought
anything else was going on, I wouldn't have been there. Period. I won't be
a party to that."

Court records show the property owner's sister did have a civil forfeiture
proceeding filed against her as a result of a raid in that same time
period, but that the sister was not arrested. A settlement was later agreed
upon in regards to the forfeiture action.

Stone ended up spending time in two different psychiatric hospitals in
Roseburg and Portland. His injured back and his fragile mental condition
cost him his caretaker's position, and he was unable to maintain a
subsequent job. Stone sought and received, after hiring an attorney, a
$5,000 worker's comp claim for his back and $1,000 under a different
agreement having to do with the PTSD. He is now considered 70 percent
disabled.

In 1996, the Stones filed a suit against several of the officers involved
in the raid and against Dean Finnerty, the Cottage Grove police detective
who led the investigation. The cases against all law enforcement personnel
were dismissed. The case against Finnerty, in which the Stones sought $1.5
million in damages for alleged violations of their constitutional rights
during the raid, was heard just two weeks ago by Lane County Circuit Judge
Jack Mattison.

In their suit, the Stones claim the affidavit Finnerty submitted to Judge
David Brewer in order to obtain a search warrant for the Coburg property
contained exaggerations and inaccuracies.

The 17-page, single-spaced affidavit details the evidence Finnerty amassed
in his four-year investigation of the Coburg property. At the time the
document was written, Finnerty says he had four years of experience and
"hundreds of hours" of training in controlled substances investigations.
"Since approximately 1993 I have worked essentially full-time on this
investigation," Finnerty wrote.

The evidence cited by Finnerty leading him to believe a large-scale drug
operation was being conducted at the Coburg residence included:

* a piece of paper with the numbers "110 and "370" written on it. The
numbers referred to marijuana transactions, he concluded. "Specifically,
the '110' is consistent with the prices of one-quarter ounce of
high-quality marijuana, and '370' is consistent with one ounce of
high-quality marijuana";

* a shopping list containing the notation, "Large pots for replanting big
plants (3), planting soil (Miracle Grow), lawn (Weed and Feed)";

* a two-year analysis of electricity consumption at the Coburg home that
showed the house used "almost double" the amount of electricity as other
comparable homes in the area. Finnerty concluded the usage was consistent
with a grow operation;

* an analysis of blueprints of the home, which showed two "unusual" rooms
in the residence;

* four findings of very small amounts of used marijuana from the
residence's trash;

* the fact that "significant real estate transactions" had occurred between
the owner of the property and the Stones;

* the fact that Byron Stone "has a felony dangerous drug conviction in Lane
County."

Finnerty also noted the content of several conversations with anonymous
sources he called "Concerned Citizens #1 and #2," whom he said were in a
position to possess inside knowledge about the Coburg residents. The
sources claimed there were automatic weapons on the property and also had
reported that a drive-by shooting of the detective himself was being
planned by a third party.

During the trial, Finnerty was unable to produce the papers on which were
written the "significant" numbers, "110" and "370." He admitted he did not
know whether the homes he was using to compare the Coburg property's
electrical usage to were all electric or natural gas. (It was also shown
that the approximately 5,000-square-foot Coburg house included a heated,
three-car garage, a hot tub, four water heaters and two, large glassed-in
rooms.)

The "numerous transactions" Finnerty cited as evidence of the Stones' money
laundering for their employer ended up being the Stones' purchase of a
Cottage Grove home from their employer's family trust back East. The
transaction was arranged by Eugene attorney Joe Richards. It was also
clarified that Byron Stone's one and only arrest was for possession of
marijuana in 1972, for which he received a three-year probation.

Despite these discrepancies, on Oct. 23, Judge Mattison dismissed the suit
before the jury began deliberations. According to the Stones' attorney,
David Force, the judge said he believed Finnerty's testimony about the
missing evidence and the conversations with the unnamed informants. Those,
along with the used marijuana found in the trash from the residence,
represented "probable cause" to seize and search all persons on the
property, the judge said.

The judge, wrote Force, "said the case left 'a bad taste in the mouth'
because it appeared that people who didn't deserve to had suffered greatly,
but that the 'law doesn't always give a remedy' when government action
injures innocent citizens."

Dean Finnerty has been named a corporal in the Cottage Grove Police
Department. (The department's attorney did not return phone calls
requesting more details about Finnerty's change of status.)

The Stones plan to appeal their case against Finnerty and also the cases
against law enforcement personnel that were earlier dismissed.